


The Zombie's Beating Heart

by PawPunk



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Body Horror, Dehumanization, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Friendship, Gen, Horror, Magic Slavery, Minor Violence, Puns & Word Play, Witch Curses, Zombies, cleo is like an actual monster, the magic of friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28631631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PawPunk/pseuds/PawPunk
Summary: In which a Poet frees a Zombie- or, more accurately, helps a Zombie free herself- from a Witch's spell through the powers of poetry, friendship, and sheer dumb luck.
Relationships: can be read as platonic - Relationship, jleo
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	The Zombie's Beating Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: body horror, fairytale-typical abuse (think Cinderella)

Once upon a time, there was a wandering Poet. He carried with him nothing but a tent, a notebook, and the clothes on his back. Everything he ate and drank, he foraged, poached, or was given in exchange for reciting his songs and poems (or, as the night wore on and he drank more and more ale, in exchange for stopping). He was by all means a poor hermit, but it never bothered him, because he considered money a trifle, and everyone he met a friend.

One dry and icy day, the Poet stepped out of the dark thicket of the Grimm forest, into a clearing. One could hardly justify calling the five or six houses, meagre gardens, and single well built there a town, but nonetheless the Poet judged this place to be the location of his next performance. He dropped the pack from his back and began to pitch his tent, but before he had hammered the first peg into the ground a strong hand grabbed his arm and yanked him into one of the small cottages.

“What were you thinking?” The person who had pulled him in was a broad and rather threatening woman, but the Poet was more miffed than afraid. “Do ye _want_ to die?”

“Not specifically,” the Poet said. “I have been here for just a few minutes, you have to understand. Why exactly-“ 

The woman pressed a finger to her lips. Silently, she pointed out the window, towards the well. The Poet stared out the dusty glass at the empty courtyard. The last shutters closed across the way, save the ones of the window the Poet was looking out of. A breeze brushed through the town, bringing with it dead leaves from the forest- but also a long, slowly stumbling shadow. The woman shied away from the window, her broad back pressed to the wall of her home. The Poet leaned against the glass.

The shadow grew longer, then was accompanied by the thing casting it. The thing in question was a woman cloaked in black wool, her red hair spilling out of the hood and two wooden buckets clutched in one pale hand. She walked slowly, her arms shaking like an old woman’s, but her hair and stature suggested a younger person underneath her cloak.

“Is she who we are hiding from?” the Poet asked. 

The woman’s eyes bugged out of her face in a grimace. “Quiet!” she commanded, her black-haired head jerking towards the window. “I do not wish to find out what happens if it hears you.” Out in the square, the slow woman had finally reached the well. She set down her buckets, then carefully removed her cloak. It was then that the Poet realized what his host must be afraid of. 

The woman’s skin was the grey, sagging skin of a corpse, and as she picked up the buckets, the rusty hinges of her arms were stiff with rigor mortis. Silently, the Zombie filled one bucket, then the other, in the village well. 

“Do you see what I just saved your sorry soul from?” the Poet’s humble host snapped. “Next time, take care not to be so foolish.”

Another cold wind blew clouds over the village. The Zombie’s cloak fluttered, and she stomped on it. Slowly, she bent over to pick it up, wrapping it once more around her cold body. Then, she stooped, lifted the full buckets, and made her way back from whence she had come, much slower for the weight of the water.

“No,” the Poet said, watching her depart. “Is this all she does?”

The woman’s eyes darkened. “Better not to ask those questions,” she said, her voice as grim as the forest. “Better not to wait for the monster to eat one of us before we start taking precautions.” On the brink of the forest, the Zombie stumbled. A few drops of water sloshed from her buckets, and she turned back to look at the well. It was not a minute’s walk away, but apparently not worth the trouble. The Zombie stepped into the forest.

“Sure,” said the Poet. “Thank you for letting me into your home.”

The woman patted him on the back. “None needed, son.”

The town slowly came back to life. Shutters opened, livestock wandered, and finally people milled about as the Poet pitched his tent and selected the songs and epics to sing at the small tavern. The town was friendlier than most, welcoming him with applause rather than stones, and the Poet went to sleep under the glittering stars with a full belly.

It was this hospitality that made the poet more inclined to trust the townsfolk’s fear of the Zombie. Every dusk, she would walk shakily to the well, and every dusk the Poet would obediently hide away in his tent. But even though he trusted the people of the town, he couldn’t resist parting the fabric of his tent to watch the dead woman draw water. She didn’t look dangerous. She didn’t even look capable of walking much faster than her staggering gait, lifting more than her two buckets of water. 

So, when a winter breeze caught the Zombie’s cloak and blew it away, far faster than she could run, it was the Poet who stepped out of his tent and ran to catch it. The cloak fluttered like a great black bat, and the Poet leaped, barely catching it. He reeled it in, bundling the fabric in his arms, and turned to the Zombie. She stared at him with dull undead eyes. 

“Hello,” the Poet said. The Zombie’s eyes narrowed. “I have your cloak.”

The Zombie did not speak, but eventually she stepped forward and snatched her cloak away. Her fingernails grazed his arm, leaving a fine red scrape.

“Have a nice day,” the Poet said lamely. The Zombie ignored him, slipping her cloak on and carrying the water back as she always did.

The Poet performed again. Those who had seen him help the Zombie did not buy him food nor drink.

Perhaps the Poet was much smarter than the townsfolk. Perhaps he was capable of seeing past fear and hearsay and recognizing what was right in front of his face- that the Zombie posed no threat at all. Or perhaps he was much less intelligent, or placed less value on his life. Either way, when sunset fell on the next day, the Poet did not hide at all. He greeted the Zombie at the dark mouth of the woods with a bow.

“Good evening!” he said cheerily. The Zombie tilted her head, then set down her buckets and curtsied, gripping the hem of her cloak. When she rose, there was a faint smirk on her face.

The Poet took that as a good sign, and continued. “I noticed that it’s difficult for you to fill your buckets with water. May I do it for you?” The Zombie raised her ginger eyebrows, then adopted a royal demeanor. She bestowed the buckets upon the Poet like they were a ball and scepter, and he took them with similar pomp and circumstance. His living body carried them to the well and drew water much more quickly than the Zombie, and he returned them to her in minutes.

“Safe travels,” he said, as he placed the handles in her stiff, cold claws. The Zombie nodded, turning quickly back into the woods. 

From then on, the village square no longer emptied when dusk fell. The Poet waited for his friend, then filled her buckets and sent her on her way. Each day, he greeted her with a different quip- a poem he had composed about her, a question after her wellbeing, a complement. The Zombie began walking with him to the well, rather than waiting for him, to spend more time with her, but she never spoke a single word. 

Finally, as the Poet brought the water to the lip of the woods, he asked the Zombie a question he had wondered for a long time. “Ma’am,” he began, for he didn’t know her name, or even if she had one, “Where do you take the water?”

The Zombie’s glazed-over eyes darkened. She turned her fiery head towards the woods, contemplating. Then, finally, she gestured for the Poet to follow her. She brushed aside a branch, leading the Poet into a tunnel in the thicket. He ducked, following her, careful not to spill the water. As the Zombie led the Poet further into the woods, the ground turned to mud, the branches to thorns, the sounds of the town re-awakening to silence and buzzing insects. If the Poet were less trusting, he would have thought he was being tricked.

Finally, the Zombie turned around and snatched the buckets from the Poet. She put a finger to her lips before ducking through the bushes, into a much smaller clearing. He watched as she dragged the buckets to a small stone cottage, riddled with vines. She set one down next to a wild herb garden, paused, then knocked on the cabin’s rotting door.

“Took you long enough!” The door swung open, and a tall, thin woman stormed out. She snatched the bucket out of the Zombie’s hands, nearly spilling it on the muddy ground. Without so much as a thank you, the woman slammed the door again, leaving the Zombie standing outside in the cold. Her shoulders sagged, and she slowly returned to where the Poet hid. 

“Who was that?” the Poet whispered, for he knew it would end poorly for both he and the Zombie if the woman heard them. 

The Zombie held out her hand, flat, then mimed holding a pen and writing on it. Luckily, the Poet had brought his notebook and a charcoal pencil, and he handed both over to the Zombie. Her hands were stiff and shaky, but slowly, she wrote out her answer.

_The Witch is my creator. She brought me back from the dead, but not out of the goodness of her heart. She has mine, and as long as she keeps it I have to do what she says. She tells me not to speak, so I can’t. She tells me to fetch water, so I must. No one can do anything about it._

The Zombie gave the Poet his notebook and pencil back. As he read it, his heart sank. How many days had the Zombie stumbled into town, watched the townsfolk hide and shiver in fear, without even realizing she was a person? Forgetting that she could hear him, the Poet wrote a message back.

_I will help you._

The Zombie gave him a sad smile, like he was a child who didn’t understand why his father didn’t come back from the war. _She is powerful_ , she wrote. _It is too risky to try to steal back my heart, and she has commanded me not to try_.

“I know,” the Poet said aloud. “But I’m going to try anyway. It would be wrong of me not to.”

_You will put yourself in more danger, and you will not succeed_.

“You don’t know that,” the Poet said lightly. “Some say poetry is awful close to magic.” The Zombie rolled her eyes. 

_Go on and try, but try not to get your hopes up_ , she wrote. _You should leave_.

“I know,” the Poet said somberly. He took back his notebook and pencil, then crept back through the woods into the town. That night, instead of performing or writing new poems, he stayed up the whole night thinking of ways to break the Zombie’s spell.

From then on, the Poet didn’t just help the Zombie carry her water. He learned how to perform her other chores- the ones away from her master’s prying eyes, at least- and helped her, keeping her company with casual stories. As they spent more time together, the Zombie’s glassy eyes brightened, and she smiled more often. The Poet would have said she had come alive if she were not undead.

The Poet certainly found himself feeling more alive than ever. He thought he had considered the whole world his friend, but that was demonstrably not true. The Zombie was his friend. His only friend. That was why he stayed in that one town into the spring, long after the townsfolk stopped giving him food, taking all his time to aid the Zombie with her tasks or scrounge for edible plants in the woods.

But after months of routine, the Poet and the Zombie grew careless. As he carried the firewood they had collected to the Witch’s cottage, he passed in front of the window, and the Witch saw him. He placed the wood in the shed and turned around. The Zombie frantically gestured for him to return to the woods. “What-“

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and the Witch stormed out. “You!” she cried, swinging the broom at the Poet. “What are you doing in my clearing? Are you trying to steal my zombie?”

Instead of saying something that would deescalate the situation, or simply running, the Poet straightened his back, looked the Witch in the eye, and said “I was not. I could not steal her, because she is not an object.”

“You arrogant, stupid man,” the Witch sneered. “You let your eyes deceive you! It may look like a woman, but it is not! It is a corpse, a mere rag doll I gifted movement! There is nothing inside!”

“You lie!” the Poet roared, tearing up with anger and frustration. “Either you are stupid or cruel, not to see that you have made a person!” The Zombie grabbed his arm, dragging him away as the Witch swung her broom at his head.

“You’re confusing it,” she sneered. Leave, before I put a curse upon you!” She jabbed the Poet with her broom, and he doubled over in pain. “As for you,” she said to the Zombie, “I command you to never look upon this man again, or burn your eyes with pepper!”

The Poet stood up, reaching out to the Zombie, but as she looked at him, her eyes screwed shut with pain. Before he could hurt her further, the Poet ran from the forest.

The next dusk, the Poet hid in his tent, for fear of hurting his friend. He heard the shutters slam shut on the houses, and hot tears filled his eyes as he realized that once again, the Zombie was alone. That once again, _he_ was alone.

The cloth door to his tent brushed aside. The Poet looked up, confused to see his friend again- but blindfolded. She smiled and handed him a piece of paper.

_I’m not giving up that easily_.

The Poet clutched the paper, smiling radiantly despite his tears. He stood up and left the tent. “I figured you wouldn’t,” he said. “You seem strong to me.” The Poet grabbed her arm, and carefully guided her to the well and back to the edge of the woods.

Of course, the Witch found out about their continued contact eventually. She heard the Poet’s laughter from the woods as he bore the Zombie’s water, and her lip twitched in rage. The moment her vassal was back, she commanded in an imperious voice, “Never hear that man’s voice again, or hear in its place the screaming of damned souls!” When the Poet heard this, he immediately broke his pencil in half, and ripped a ream of paper from his notebook. The next time he saw his friend, he pressed a letter into her hand explaining how they could still communicate by text, and gifted her half of the pencil and his paper. 

They continued to pass letters back and forth every day, and the Zombie kept them all- for as much as she had rolled her eyes at the Poet’s kindness at first, it was now the most precious star in the sky to her. When her master was asleep, she would hold the papers up to a candle and read the Poet’s stories of all the places he had been, and all the places she wanted to go. She wrote back about the Witch’s spells, how she had tried to replicate them, but her hands shook too much. No matter how much they shook, though, she never stopped writing.

Until, one night, the Witch awoke before the Zombie could hide. She stormed into the Zombie’s quarters (which were just a pile of rags to form her bed by the fireplace) and snatched the papers away. The Zombie quivered in fear as her master read them, growing more and more enraged by the moment. What the Witch hated most wasn’t even the Zombie’s disobedience- though she would love to beat her until she had to raise her corpse again for that- it was that her vassal could write such letters at all. Here was true proof that the Zombie was not a mindless monster, but a person, unfairly kept.

The Witch threw the letters on the fire. The Zombie watched them blacken and curl, already knowing what was coming next. “Zombie,” said the Witch coldly, “I command you to never think of the Poet again. And if you see him, I command you to tear out his throat so he may never speak again. Do this or rot, like you would have years ago if not for my kindness.” The Zombie nodded mutely. She lay down on her bed of cloth and cried dry tears for the whole night, thinking of nothing at all.

When the Zombie didn’t walk into town the next night, the Poet got worried, but figured it was nothing to worry about. Being seen by the Witch would only put him and his friend in danger. Maybe, a small part of him even hoped, the Zombie had escaped.

The second day she didn’t show, he borrowed a pitchfork from one of the farmers and tracked back through the muddy tunnel in the underbrush, pushing aside the bracken to reveal the Witch’s rotting cottage. The windows were dark and dusty. The Poet hoped that meant the Witch was away. He ducked under the window and pushed the door carefully open. 

The cottage was indeed dark, but light shone and sound drifted up from the cracks in the floor- the Witch was in a room under her trap door! But somewhere in this house was the Zombie’s heart, the only thing that would set her free. The Poet swallowed, and took a tentative step.

“What’s that?” came the Witch’s voice from far below the floor. The Poet stilled, barely breathing. The Witch’s footsteps sounded below, until they were directly under the Poet, but thankfully she said “Must be my old ears.” The Poet waited a few more moments for the Witch to resume whatever evil deeds she was committing, then darted across the room to search the numerous shelves.

Unfortunately, the Stars were not aligned to support the Poet’s quest. As he crossed over a rug made of some poor creature’s pelt, his foot landed on the very trapdoor to the Witch’s basement. He yelled as it gave way, sending him sliding down the steep stairs, his pitchfork stuck in the floor above. All his breath left him as he collapsed on the dirt floor, knocking over one of the many candles that dotted it. The Witch and the Zombie staring at him in total shock.

The Zombie turned away, covering her eyes before she could disobey. But the Witch regained her senses quickly, whipping her wild head towards her vassal. “Well?” she said, grinning manically. “Look who’s here to see you!” 

The Poet grabbed the stair behind him, trying to stand, but a sharp pain in his ankle quickly prevented that. He slumped down again, noting with chagrin the shelf behind the witch. A jar filled with liquid was displayed prominently, and in that jar was a beating red heart, almost within reach. A shame he would never leave this basement alive.

“Remember your orders, now,” the Witch taunted. “Go on, rip your precious poet’s throat out!” The Zombie’s feet dragged across the floor, advancing slowly but steadily upon him. “Faster!” the Witch demanded.

The Poet looked up at her. His friend stood above him, her hands twitching as she fought not to hurt him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, lacing his warm fingers with her cold, stiff ones. “I don’t blame you for anything.” He shut his eyes and braced for the end of his life.

“No.” The voice did not belong to the Poet or the Witch- it was scratchy from disuse, and so quiet it could hardly be heard from three paces away, but still determined. When the Poet opened his eyes, the Zombie was still standing in front of him, but facing the Witch, guarding him from her wrath. “You will never make me hurt him.”

“Never make-“ the Witch laughed, but beneath the mocking was genuine fear. “Of course I can make you! I brought you back from the dead! I have your-“ but when the Witch turned, the Zombie’s heart had vanished from its jar. “Oh, dear,” said the Witch.

“No, you don’t,” the Zombie said triumphantly. “You may have tore my heart out, stolen it and kept me captive, but the Poet won it fair and square. Because I want him to have my heart. Because he’s my friend.” 

“He is not your friend!” the Witch said frantically. “You do not have friends! You CANNOT have friends! You’re a walking corpse, a dead body! Now tear his throat out before I do it myself!”

The Zombie took a stumbling step forward. The Witch took one back. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll tear out his throat,” the Zombie growled, still slowly advancing. “In fact, I think I’ll do something for myself. Do you know what that might be, _master_?”

The Witch screamed. She darted around the Zombie, dashed across the room, and vaulted over the Poet, her black dress catching fire in as it brushed past one of the candles. She did not stop screaming as she scrambled up the stairs and out of the cottage, the sound disappearing into the distance.

The Zombie chuckled. “Serves her right.”

“I should say!” Now strong enough to stand, the Poet lifted himself up to the Zombie’s level. As he did so, he noticed a wet spot on his vest, and brought his hand to it. Something cold and wet and _alive_ was in his pocket, pulsing rhythmically. Trying not to flinch, he drew the Zombie’s heart out and handed it to her. “I believe this belongs to you.”

The Zombie grabbed the organ and pulled her shirt up, wedging it under her ribcage where it belonged. “Thank you,” she said, sounding almost surprised to have any reason to say the words.

“I don’t believe I got your name,” the Poet said, as he climbed the stairs up.

“I didn’t have one,” said the Zombie, as she grabbed his hand and followed. “But I’ve always liked the sound of Cleo.”

“A lovely choice,” the Poet said. “It sounds like crashing waves against the hulls of ships and copper coins.”

Cleo snorted. “Do people pay you for that?”

“Well, typically I have more time to refine my work,” the Poet said. “I’m afraid my name isn’t quite as sweet. It’s Joe. Just Joe.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Joe,” said Cleo. She shook his hand, but they both quickly burst out laughing at the faux formality.

“I suppose this cottage is yours, now,” Joe said. “I don’t think that Witch is coming back.”

“No,” Cleo said shortly. “But I don’t want to stay here. I don’t know what I am going to do with the rest of my years, but I won’t spend them here.” She kicked her pile of cloth. 

Joe cocked his head. “Do you not remember being alive?”

“No,” Cleo scoffed. “All my li- all my existence, I’ve been stuck here. I don’t have any skills besides doing chores and frightening people. I suppose I’ll have to think about it.”

Joe nodded. “You seem very smart to me,” he said. “And determined. You will figure it out. But may I make a suggestion?”

“Sure,” Cleo shrugged.

“Have you considered wandering?”


End file.
